Can Tho city aims to attain regional trade hub status

From now to 2020, Can Tho city will focus on developing trade
intensively to improve its international integration and become a trade
hub of the Mekong Delta region, a municipal official said on August 19.

At a meeting with representatives of the business
circle, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Dao Anh Dung
said the city aims for trade – services accounting for 47.1 percent of
its economic structure by the end of 2015, up 3 percent from 2013.

The sector is expected to make up 52 percent of the local economy,
equivalent to 164 trillion VND (7.8 billion USD), by 2020, he noted.

The city is set to build 110 markets, 14 supermarkets, and 17 trade
centres, including a regional-scale one, between now and 2020, Deputy
Director of the municipal Department of Industry and Trade Bui Ngoc Vy
said.

In the meantime, the locality plans to step up
trade promotion abroad in a bid to seek more outlets for its aquatic
products in Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, Europe, North America and
Africa .

It targets export revenues of over 7 billion USD by 2020, four times higher than the 2013 figure.

Can Tho will also simplify administrative procedures to attract 120
trillion VND (5.7 billion USD) into the trade sector, innovate the
manufacturing of export lines, and strengthen its ties with other
localities as well as foreign economic organisations.

Since the beginning of 2014, local trade value has reached 49.7
trillion VND (2.36 billion USD), fulfilling 70.8 percent of the yearly
goal, with some 900 million USD coming from exports.